Salmon with Moroccan Chermoula

It was a pretty lazy Sunday for us. Having gotten our long bike ride in on Saturday, we had an uneventful day with no plans to leave the house in the midst of the 100 degree temperature, except a trip to Whole Foods for the weekly grocery run. As a treat to myself, for going through the torture of a packed WF on a Sunday afternoon, I always get to stop at Puccino's Coffee for a frozen puccino. What is that you ask? Frozen ice milk and espresso blended together and topped with whipped cream. I tell myself it's lowfat and usually have at least one a week as a reward for making the grocery run to Metry...any way, I digress....

I knew I wanted to make fish tonight and that I wanted to serve a chermoula sauce with it. I got a beautiful piece of coho salmon, but there wasn't a sprig of cilantro in the store so I opted for making it entirely from parsley (I usually use mainly cilantro with a just a bit of parsley). I didn't know we were out of coriander seeds at home, so I had to skip than ingredient as well, but I threw in a few other things to make up for it!

Kerry's mom gave her a little mini cuisinart one year and I love to use it for recipes like this when I'm only making enough for the night's meal. I made the chermoula first to let the flavors set and then made a rub for the salmon as well. This is a very quick, fresh summer dish that is bursting with flavor and works with just about anything, fish, chicken, meat etc. Click here for another version that I combined with eggplant and stuffed into peppers, chermoula.

Chermoula
1-1/2 cups fresh flat leaf parsley
1 clove garlic
1 t. cumin seeds
pinch of saffron
pinch of cayenne pepper
juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 t. paprika
1/4 t. salt
1/4 cup olive oil

Fish Rub
lemon zest from 1/2 lemon
salt
pepper
pinch chili powder
olive oil

Fish
1 lb. wild coho salmon
butter

Put all ingredients, except oil, of the chermoula in a food processor and pulse. When everything is well mixed, begin adding the olive oil a little at a time until well blended. Set aside.


Mix ingredients for rub and add enough oil to be able spread it onto the fish with your hands. Let sit for 20 minutes.



Heat 1 T. olive oil in a large pan. Quickly cook salmon to desired doneness, remove from heat and allow a little butter to melt on the filets. Add chermoula and serve.

Deliciously Versatile Chermoula

Thanks to one of my favorite local chefs, Dan Esses, I've recently become infatuated with Chermoula, a very versatile spice paste used in Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian cooking. In its most basic form it is a combination of parsley, coriander, onion and garlic. It's deliciously fragrant and fresh tasting and is usually used as a compliment to fish, although I'm finding you can use it on just about anything! Chermoula can be used as a marinade, dressing, dip and use it on meats, fish, roasted veggies, salad....you get the idea!

Here's a basic Chermoula recipe:

Ingredients:

* 1 bunch cilantro (coriander), finely chopped
* 4 cloves garlic, pressed or finely chopped
* 2 tablespoons paprika
* 1 tablespoon cumin
* 1 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
* 1/2 teaspoon red pepper
* 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled
* 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
* juice of 1 lemon

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.


Most recently I roasted 2 lbs of eggplant, caramelized a sweet vidalia onion, boiled 2 potatoes and threw them in the food processor with the Chermoula to make a thick spread. I went to Nor-Joe's off of Metairie Road for a can of roasted piquillo (another new obsession thanks to Dan!) and stuffed the eggplant spread in the sweet little peppers. I also got some pine nuts there and toasted those, crushed them and used them as a garnish with fresh cilantro. This was my offering for our DC-10 dinner featuring "weird wines" where I paired it with a Negroamaro from Puglia, the Tormaresca Masseria Maime. Amazing wine, pretty decent pairing and the dish got rave reviews!

Next I'm thinking of using it as a marinade for a nice piece of fish, served over some red quinoa...you can make up a batch of the Chermoula and keep it in the refrigerator for about a week and put it on everything!